Criss Cross

Chapter 41

The first sprinkles of rain fell. Sampson grabbed the computer off the hood. We got inside the car and ate our lunches, which we’d bought on the way, and watched the screen. I changed the drone camera’s angle every so often.

We saw nothing for nearly three hours. The rain picked up, and although the camera lens on the drone had a protective hood, we were getting droplets on the feed. Then we saw a dark panel van pull into the driveway by the house.

The driver got out, ran toward the house, and disappeared. A few moments later, he got back in the vehicle and drove down toward the anthill.

The wind blew rain at the camera, making everything blurry when the van rolled past the excavation equipment and stopped by the anthill. The driver climbed out a few minutes later, his rain hood up, carrying what looked like two big, heavy toolboxes.

He vanished behind the bunker, reappeared for a moment near that recessed hatch door, then disappeared inside.

“Workman?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “I wish we could read what it says on the side of that van.”

I considered whether to start the drone and fly it closer, but I doubted my ability to fly the thing in a gusting wind.

Five minutes later, the driver exited the anthill, returned to the van, turned around, and disappeared down the drive. Another vehicle, a green Jeep Cherokee, followed a few minutes later.

“That’s Rivers,” I said, starting our car. “He’s on the move.”

“What about the drone?”

“I’ll put it to sleep. It’s not going anywhere.”

We never saw the van leave the estate, but Rivers popped out in his Jeep a few minutes later. We followed him eight miles to a building-supply store in Madison, Virginia. Sampson went in and watched him buy a bow saw, a box of trash-compactor bags, a roll of plastic sheeting, rubber gloves, and bleach.

“Bleach?” I said when Sampson told me.

“And a bow saw,” he said. “And everything else a creep might need if he was intending to kill someone and get rid of the body.”

We followed Rivers home, trailing him at a distance. The rain was easing up when he disappeared down his driveway. We returned to the cut field, reconnected to the drone camera, and saw him in front of the hatch door getting his purchases out of the car.

Rivers went inside his bunker and did not come out. It got darker, and darker.

“I’ve got to get that drone out of there,” I said, using the remote to turn it on.

For a few tense moments, I thought I’d blown it because when I tried to get the drone to lift off, it would move and the camera tilted as if a leg was snagged on a stick in the wall of the nest.

But then I brought the drone backward a bit and it broke free. In the fading daylight, I flew it back and landed it by the car.

“Ned’s right. This is an amazing piece of machinery,” I said, picking it up and bringing it to Sampson, who’d opened the trunk.

“So is a bow saw in its way,” Sampson said. “Maybe enough for cause.”

I set the drone in the trunk and closed it. “Doesn’t feel enough,” I said.

I heard my cell make that infernal Wickr ding noise. Ali was probably trying to find out when I’d be home for dinner.

I walked to the driver-side door as I tugged out my phone. “John,” I said, “we’re going to need something more compelling than—”

I looked at the screen and froze.